Fuselage gussets
There are all kinds of fun little tasks to do now. Most of which have nothing to do with each other. This is a welcome change. Obviously, first I spent some quality time with the level and shims to make sure the whole fuselage was perfectly level. I came to realize that when it comes to just getting things perfectly level, the old fashioned bubble level is every bit as good as the digital level. The cool thing about the digital level is that you can measure/calculate a difference. Things being consistently level at this point is pretty important as we are getting ready to install the aft deck which will torsionally lock the fuselage with any twist (bad) that exists. Before the aft deck is installed you can very easily twist the whole aft fuselage. Once it is on, it is rock solid.
So with that, I clamped the aft deck in place, checked level, adjusted, checked, adjusted, checked, re-checked, went away for a little while, came back, re-checked again, stepped back and looked at it for a few minutes, checked again, and drilled the holes. I think Tanya was wondering why I spent so much time looking at this one part. Cool, so it is drilled, deburred, primed, and I’ll rivet it on next time I have the rivet squeezer out. On to the next little task.
Next, there is a gusset, mid fuselage, that ties the sides to the bulkhead just aft of the seat backs that needed to be fit. Piece of cake. This is also where I’m going to mount my ELT antenna. So I got it out and drilled the hole for it. While I was looking at that setup, I realized I needed to figure out how I was going to route the antenna wire down the bulkhead and through the (removable) baggage side skin. A 1/4″ ID rubber grommet trimmed and split worked beautifully. So the side skin is still removable since the grommet and antenna wire can be slid out of the side notch.
Moving forward to the firewall, guess what, another gusset to be made. This one ties the firewall to the upper longerons. You could guess its importance by the number of large rivets that go into it. This was some tedious drilling as many of the holes go through the gusset, longeron, and steel motor mount on the firewall. Once again, they were deburred, primed and are ready to rivet. I’m priming these little parts individually with the rattle can in the closed garage since it is below freezing outside.
I got out the seat belt shoulder harness tie down brackets and match drilled them to the longerons. These get bolted on later. To finish off the evening, I installed the static ports on the sides of the aft fuselage. These are just big pop rivets that get pulled and then the center nail driven out to make them hollow. A piece of tubing is then glued onto the tail of the rivet. Very simple and effective.
